Hummingbird
by Sunfreak
Summary: Shinobi folklore, unhappy duties, and life as an exercise in affection. SasuNaru, implied HinaNeji.


A/N: white_knuckle challengefic. Fandom: Naruto. Pairing: Sasuke/Naruto. Title: "Hummingbird." Line: "May I have this dance?" Also, I used a little Mexican tradition in here too. Let's play "spot the author's little trick."  
  
Written because, as the requester said, this is the only way to get me to do a proper SasuNaru anymore. XD  
  
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"Hummingbird"  
  
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The hummingbird's wings move so fast that hardly anyone can see them. There is some old shinobi folktale that, if you can count how many times a hummingbird flaps its wings in a minute every time without fail, then you are in love. Because when you are in love, time stops for you.  
  
So you can count the wingbeats.  
  
You can count . . .  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
Sasuke's heart is loud in Naruto's ears. Loud and familiar.  
  
If you think you'll never hear a thing again, you'll remember it forever. Once, Naruto thought that he would never hear this again. Several times, in fact, he has thought this.  
  
Sasuke's heartbeat will be in his ears until the day he dies.  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
"May I have this dance?" Sasuke says it mockingly, smirking all the while and pantomiming a bow even as he spreads the three kunai clenched between the knuckles of each hand. Six in all, like claws. Naruto thinks that would be a more appropriate trick for himself and his fox.  
  
"Why the hell not?" He shrugs lazily and grins in reply, flicking shuriken into his own fingers and mimicking Sasuke's hold. He copies Sasuke's tricks and makes them better. That is why he considers his abilities are superior to the Sharingan. Because they are something he studies, not a gift of his bloodline, not any kind of birthright.  
  
When Sasuke and Naruto dance, they don't do it like normal people. If you miss a step, you won't get your foot stepped on- you'll just die.  
  
They both consider dying less embarrassing anyway.  
  
It starts. Sasuke throws his kunai.  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
Sakura's deft hands are sewing up a damaged wedding kimono. It is not hers, which bothers her much less than it once would have. Ino sits beside her, stitching up the other side. From the other side of the room, Naruto watches their fingers dip and rise again and again, thinking about the time he saw Sasuke in a kimono almost this exact shade of green, among other more disjointed things, like the tears in Hinata's eyes as she watches the other girls from her place behind him.  
  
The girls' needles flicker across the fabric like swift silver fish through a green river, flaring in the light each time they surface and never stopping to breathe. Hinata wraps her arms around one of Naruto's and her tears fall like shooting stars with no wishes left in them.  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
Hanabi wears her river-green wedding clothes, her face torn between a frightened pallor and a humiliated flush. Neji stands beside her, himself uncomfortably ill at ease and wearing a dark red kimono.  
  
Among the watchers, a few of the elder Hyugas offer patronizing smiles in way of "reassurance." Hanabi looks like she is about to kill something. Neji looks like he has just found out exactly how bad Hell really is and been given a one-way ticket.  
  
Sasuke's eyes are closed and he is pretending not to hear anything of the ceremony. Naruto's nails have dug so deeply into his palms that even the kyuubi's chakra won't be able to erase the scars. Sakura is wringing the hem of her dress as hard as if she's trying to draw blood herself.  
  
They couldn't stop it, but they had to be here.  
  
It's over. The sympathetic flinch and glance from Hinata to Neji; the cruel smirk as they do the same. Hinata's face is so perfectly blank that even Neji could never read it.  
  
Hanabi and Neji walk down the aisle without looking at each other, step by defeated step.  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
The reception. The air is cold and sharp and the sun hangs low in the sky, like it's trying to drag all the color in the world out with it. Sasuke and Naruto stand side-by-side, watching smiling girls dance with fascinated boys in the street before them. Pretending not to be watching Hanabi and Neji as they stand side-by-side too, both clearly terrified even if they are hiding it.  
  
"May I have this dance?" Sasuke's voice, but not mocking like usual. Just quiet and calm and expectant, like the hand held out for Naruto's.  
  
Naruto takes it and matches his rival's movements: a real mirror wheel, the two of them spinning around each other and one perfectly mimicking the other. Neither would ever say who was leading, and perhaps neither really is. Either way, they pretend there's no such thing as responsibility and step together in perfect unison.  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
It's been a month since the wedding. Sasuke and Naruto haven't spoken since. It's not that they haven't seen each other, it's just that they just haven't had anything to say. Sakura is a little worried, because every day they go out and train and eat together, but neither ever says a word to his companion.  
  
Sakura has heard that if you wear a hummingbird pendant around your neck, it means you are searching for love. But she really doesn't think that such a thing is necessary. She can read loneliness as easily as she counts the minutes until Lee arrives.  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
It is spring. Hinata is pregnant and won't say who the father is. Hanabi still won't sleep in the same room as Neji and he isn't complaining. Naruto wears a hummingbird necklace and Sakura does not.  
  
Sasuke is looking at a flower. There is a hummingbird dancing around it.  
  
He counts . . .  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
*  
  
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* finite *  
  
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. : love comes on wings : . 


End file.
